Bruins drop series opener to Red Wings

In a predictably close Game 1, the Bruins gave up the game's only goal to the Red Wings' Pavel Datsyuk with only 3 minutes to play. The B's try to even the best-of-7 series on Sunday afternoon at TD Garden.

BOSTON – If it’s going to be a series like this, it may as well start with a game like this, right.

The Bruins and Red Wings, despite a 26-point separation in the standings, play such similar styles, their first-round playoff series is bound to be close and low-scoring if both teams can play they want. That was the case in Game 1 on Friday night at TD Garden, where the Red Wings stole home ice from the B’s with a 1-0 victory.

Game 2 of the best-of-7 series is at 3 p.m. Sunday, also at the Garden (Ch. 7, WBZ-FM/98.5).

Pavel Datsyuk, the Wings’ star center, scored the only goal of the game with 3:01 to play, zinging a wrist shot through Tuukka Rask (23 saves) on a 2-on-2 rush. The goal came moments after perhaps the Bruins’ best scoring chance of the night – a Milan Lucic redirect of Jarome Iginla’s pass to the crease that broke through Wings goalie Jimmy Howard (25 saves), but bounced through the crease and wide of the post to his right.

“It was a fortunate save,” Howard said. “It was pretty lucky.”

The Bruins hadn’t earned much in the way of good breaks – at least until the third period, when their nine shots included most of their best chances, and the only power play they got all night.

“We didn’t have the puck enough,” Bruins coach Claude Julien said. “We’ve got to start putting pucks in areas where we can get it back – and where once we get it, we can hang onto it. We didn’t play with the puck as much as we normally do.”

The Bruins didn’t have the lineup they normally have, either, and while it didn’t hurt them on the defensive end, it removed some of the scoring depth they displayed during a 15-0-1 run in March that propelled them to the top of the NHL standings.

Already managing concerns they’d probably have to play without full-time left wings Chris Kelly (back injury) and Daniel Paille (suspected head injury), plus Matt Bartkowski, the defenseman who seemed to have won the right to play on the second pairing with Johnny Boychuk, the Bruins turned out to be even more shorthanded. None of those three played (Paille did skate for the first time since getting hurt last Saturday against Buffalo), and defenseman Kevan Miller was also out.

The B’s replaced Kelly and Paille with Justin Florek (NHL debut) and Jordan Caron, respectively. The Caron-Gregory Campbell-Shawn Thornton had chances in the second and third periods, but the Florek-Carl Soderberg-Loui Eriksson trio, together for only the second time, didn’t surface until the third.

Page 2 of 2 - Andrej Meszaros took Bartkowski’s place, while Corey Potter filled in for Miller, next to Torey Krug.

The B’s managed things relatively well in the first period, especially their most challenging moment: Zdeno Chara took a penalty for boarding Brendan Smith, the older brother of Bruins winger Reilly Smith, with 3:52 left, but the B’s – despite the absence of shorthanded specialists like Chara, Kelly, Paille and Miller – didn’t allow the Red Wings to threaten Rask.

The hosts generated very little offense, though, and certainly not enough pressure to draw any penalties. A late surge allowed them to close to within 9-11 in shots on goal, but the Red Wings were the better team over the first 20 minutes.

The second period was all but a carbon copy: The Bruins, using Potter, Florek and David Krejci as fill-ins, survived Torey Krug’s penalty at 15:58, and held the Wings to five shots for the period. Again, though, they created hardly any offense.

Some of the best opportunities came from the new version of the Merlot Line (Caron, Gregory Campbell, Shawn Thornton), which, after surviving a shift against the Red Wings top line of Johan Franzen, Pavel Datsyuk and Justin Abdelkader, forced Howard to freeze a puck that Thornton dumped in. Following a TV timeout, coach Claude Julien allowed the Merlot Line to stay on the ice for the offensive zone faceoff, and they got a couple of the Bruins’ best chances of the game to that point.